wound definition

English

Etymology 1

Noun from Middle English wund, from Old English wund, from Proto-Germanic *wundō. Verb from Middle English wunden, from Old English wundian, from Proto-Germanic *wundōną.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: wo͞ond, IPA^(key): /wuːnd/
  • (MLE) IPA^(key): /wyːnd/
• (US) enPR: wo͞ond, IPA^(key): /wund/
• (obsolete) enPR: wound, IPA^(key): /waʊnd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːnd

Noun

wound (plural wounds)

2. An injury, such as a cut, stab, or tear, to a (usually external) part of the body.
   • 2013, Phil McNulty, "Liverpool 1-0 Man Utd", BBC Sport, 1 September 2013:

     The visitors were without Wayne Rooney after he suffered a head wound in training, which also keeps him out of England's World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Ukraine.

   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act 3, scene 3]:

     Showers of blood / Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, OCLC 702939134:

     I went below, and did what I could for my wound; it pained me a good deal, and still bled freely; but it was neither deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used my arm.

3. (figuratively) A hurt to a person's feelings, reputation, prospects, etc.

   It took a long time to get over the wound of that insult.

4. (criminal law) An injury to a person by which the skin is divided or its continuity broken.

Synonyms

• (injury): injury, lesion
• (something that offends a person's feelings): slight, slur, insult
• See also Thesaurus:injury

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

wound (third-person singular simple present wounds, present participle wounding, simple past and past participle wounded)

1. (transitive) To hurt or injure (someone) by cutting, piercing, or tearing the skin.

   The police officer wounded the suspect during the fight that ensued.

2. (transitive) To hurt (a person's feelings).

   The actor's pride was wounded when the leading role went to his rival.

Usage notes

• In older forms of English, when the pronoun thou was in active use, and verbs used -est for distinct second-person singular indicative forms, the verb wound had the form woundest, and had woundedst for its past tense.
• Similarly, when the ending -eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, the form woundeth was used.

Synonyms

• (injure): See Thesaurus:harm
• (hurt (feelings)): See Thesaurus:offend

Translations

Etymology 2

See wind (Etymology 2)

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /waʊnd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊnd

Verb

wound

1. simple past tense and past participle of wind
   • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 1, in The Fate of the Artemis‎^[1]:

     “[…] Captain Markam had been found lying half-insensible, gagged and bound, on the floor of the sitting-room, his hands and feet tightly pinioned, and a woollen comforter wound closely round his mouth and neck ; whilst Mrs. Markham's jewel-case, containing valuable jewellery and the secret plans of Port Arthur, had disappeared. […]”

Derived terms

• drum-wound
• series-wound